The Inbetween Time
by Caitlin
Summary: Sarah won more than her brother when she defeated Jareth five years ago; however now that it has shown itself the gift is unwelcome and driving her crazy. But the only person who can help her has his own twisted purpose.
1. Prologue

First posted: 12/2/2001  
Rating: R  
Disclaimer: Anything that can be found from the Labyrinth movie belongs to Jim Henson. The rest to me.  
Contact: Caitlin@teenagewildlife.com  
Summary: Sarah won more than her brother when she defeated Jareth five years ago; however now that it has shown itself the gift is unwelcome and driving her crazy. But the only person who can help her is also the same person who needs to use her gift for his own twisted purpose.   
Author's notes: Hi all. This is the first fanfiction I've written in a while so I'm sorry if it's not up to the standard of some of the brilliant fics I've been reading in the Laby section. Please feel free to leave any comments even if it's criticism. This story's coming from a dark place so probably will be a little dark and a little sexy at times (I hope!). Also I would love a beta if anyone's interested as I'm really paranoid about this becoming clichéd and boring. Sorry about all the babbling and I hope you enjoy. 

  
* * * * *  
THE INBETWEEN TIME

PROLOGUE

By Caitlin.  
  
* * * * *  


"Tell me about him...."  
  
She wanted to. God knows she had thought about telling someone enough. Thought about the freedom and the relief there would be in actually saying the words. Just bursting out with it to her mother then weeping into her lap at the fear that she was crazy whilst she stroked her hair and murmured soothing words. Maybe then they'd stop. A month of feeling on the brink of insanity with weird images and dreams that didn't belong to her had left her drained. A shadow of the person she had been.  
  
Lately, since the fist time that was, she spent sleepless night after sleepless night just thinking about everything. A black sort of despair washing over her that something that she wasn't even sure was real haunted her so much. At night the knowledge seemed so tangible when she could only see black and the hustle bustle of real life wasn't intruding. At times like that she felt she knew him clearly and more deeply then the thirteen hours in that maze had allowed her to and that the rest of the world was crazy. Not her.   
  
Now, with these cold indifferent medical books around her with their hard names Regression and Childhood trauma, The Human subconscious from a Post-modernist perspective, it was if he wasn't even real at all. Some sort of psychological manifestation of her solitary childhood; a psychosomatic world of her own to avoid the trauma of her mother leaving. It all made perfect sense. But then surely figures like that should be flimsy and shadowy. Easy to destroy and forget. He wasn't. He was hard and bright and so was his kingdom. If anything she could only think of him in the flesh. Blonde hair, sharp eyes, thin curled lips, skin like pale ashes; but then he was so much more than that. Her imagination wasn't capable of creating someone like him nor these images that kept on haunting her.  
  
It was important that this Psychiatrist know that, for some peculiar reason. It was important that he could to grasp the figure and the experience which had lingered in the back of her head for so many years. Unresolved. It seemed important that he understand.   
  
"I can't." She whispered.  
  
She wanted these visions and she wanted the Labyrinth to be real because she didn't want to be crazy. But then if it was real  
  
"Sarah," Reprimanded the voice from somewhere behind her, "You didn't come here, spend all this money, risk all your *principles* to tell me nothing now did you?"  
  
Lights dimmed. Clutter and confusion of the small dinky office erased. Just greyness now.   
  
"No. I suppose not."  
  
Idly she stared out of the dirty window in front of her. Under the murkiness she could see the snow thickening, whirling sideways, blotting out the buildings across the street, muffling the sound of car tyres moving north towards the city. Her companion was placing a tape into a slim black box behind her and pressing a button. She heard the click and reflected distantly on the idea of her voice being recorded and captured on that reel of tap. For some reason she didn't like the idea.  
  
"Tell me about where you met him then."  
  
Cold. She thought suddenly, it's cold in here. Shouldn't places like this be warm? How was she supposed to bare her soul when she couldn't stop shivering? This was stupid. Stupid, stupid stupid. She was a stupid little girl.   
  
"That's not any easier." She finally replied.  
  
She felt ridiculous laying down. Prone. She counted his footsteps as he walked around the office. Focussed on the pattern of his feet; something simple to ease the hot fist of nervousness curling in her stomach. Six steps from wall to wall at first. The odd pause to shuffle with some papers, check his tape recorder. And then the pattern changed as he wandered over to the window and drew the blinds shut swiftly. No light at all now. He was a shadow to her; dark and looming but walking slowly this time. Blending in with the darkness around. A few steps at the time and then a pause, a few more steps and then a pause and then.  
  
"Would you like to talk about these episodes you've been having? These 'blackouts' as you called them?"  
  
Sarah felt a sharp sting of panic in her gut. She'd forgotten she'd told him about them, in the brief words they'd had before she'd laid down on this couch which didn't really feel like a couch at all anymore. More like a sacrificial altar. No, she couldn't talk about them. The Labyrinth and him was a long time ago. She could use time to forget about them. But with these-she couldn't even think the word-these *visions* she couldn't use time. They were much too recent and much too vivid and she planned on using a well worn method on those. Not think about them and hope they go away. Just stress, she told herself and Kelly who couldn't seem to let the issue go, just stress. And anyway the word wasn't even accurate, they were more like fractured images in her mind of people she didn't know and things she didn't understand.   
  
And that was why they were so scary.  
  
"Maybe we should start somewhere else then?" He ventured interpreting her silence as refusal, his voice a soft lull.   
  
"Like the beginning?"  
  
"No. Before that."  
  
Sarah blinked. She didn't feel like starting at all now. Her palms felt clammy and she could feel sweat beading on her forehead. How much time had passed? Would she be in time to call her mum before she left for the airport? That reminded her, she had things to do, places to go, people to see. More important things then spill out the contents of her unstable mind to some psychiatrist she had only just met. What had she been thinking?   
  
She'd been thinking about taking a chance. Seizing the opportunity. She'd been thinking about an exorcism.   
  
"Why do people insist on laying down on these things?" Sarah asked frowning, staring at the door but still not able to gather the courage to leave. Feeling ludicrous lying on her back she sat up and swivelled her legs around the side of the couch.   
  
"Because they're afraid of falling down." He said without a moments hesitation. She thought she heard frustration in his voice but dismissed it. He didn't bother to explain further or comment on her obvious aversion to the subject in hand.  
  
"Oh." Replied Sarah, not sure what else to say.  
  
He was circling her now. Hands clasped behind his back and not looking at her. In the gloom he was clearer to her then he'd been at the dinner party with all those flashy chandeliers and expensive glass. Amidst the swathe of people he'd seemed as bright and false as the rest of them. A complete and utter stranger who would be leaving town on the weekend; no danger of anyone ever finding out. Doctor Richards PhD. A degree in psychiatry, most esteemed. He had a slow smile and a warm rich laugh and never tried to look her straight in the eye too much. Competent at his job. Quiet, unimposing.   
  
------"You look lost." A warm voice amidst a cacophony of high mocking laughs. He was tall with wire framed glasses. Lightly tanned with a trim beard lending his face age and trust. Trust. She felt comfortable talking to him immediately. Which was strange - socialising had never been her forte.   
  
"No, just-"   
  
"Not your kind of thing." He finished for her.  
  
She smiled. "Exactly."   
  
"You're the new intern right? At the paper?."  
  
"That's right." She said, mildly surprised that he knew and still wanted to talk to her. Until she made a reputation, being an intern was one of the lowest of the lows. But then she was still only at Uni.  
  
"I'm Doctor Richards," He offered his hand and when she took it it was warm and strong. "I was at your office yesterday. Ian seems interested in doing an article on hypnotism and I offered to help him out."  
  
"You're a hypnotist?"  
  
He laughed but it wasn't mocking, "No a Psychiatrist. Although I have just begun using hypnotherapy as a new method of treating patients,"  
  
Sarah pulled a face and he seemed to read her thoughts. "Not a believer?"  
  
"I didn't say that. I just don't like the idea of hypnotism. I'd prefer a doctor who allowed me to-"  
  
"Stay in control?" He finished again and she found herself smiling again. He picked up a wine glass and swished the red liquid around it like a whirlpool. He took a slow deliberate sip, his eyes never leaving her then said in a conversational tone.  
  
"You know I'm in town until the end of the week." ------  
  
She'd made an appointment straight away.   
  
But now they were in the room she noticed how slim he was, how he never looked at her, and the way the vein in his slim neck stuck out under the collar of his expensive shirt and it was suddenly too dark. Much too dark and much too quiet. The tape recorder whirled behind her, insistent. His smooth movements and low voice didn't seem as calm and reassuring as before. There was an urgency in his step and a sense of pressure in the fluttering of his hands behind his back she'd never noticed.   
  
"I get the feeling you're not being honest with me." He turned to face her but she still couldn't see his eyes, "I need complete honesty Sarah. How do you expect me to help you if you can't tell me the truth?"   
  
This had been a bad idea. Rash. All her worst experiences were always borne of rash decisions. What did she really know about him? She was a journalist, trainee journalist at that, not a psychiatrist. All she'd gone on was the recommendation of colleagues who'd probably had too much wine anyway.   
  
"You know," Sarah tentatively got up, moving towards the wall by her and fumbling for a light switch, "maybe this wasn't such a good idea."   
  
She was getting that feeling again. That rumbling in her head; that feeling of anticipation. No not here, not now. Not with this man in the room she barely knew and suddenly felt wary around.   
  
"Why not?" She grasped for her bag and in her haste knocked it off the desk where she had left it, papers fell to the floor. Squinting in the gloom she quickly bent to pick them up and stuff them in her bag.   
  
Suddenly he was next to her, helping her. His breath hot on her neck. "Perhaps you'd like to comeback at a later time when you're more-" he paused looking for the word, "receptive?"   
  
Sarah gave a nervous laugh. "This is about as receptive as I get and anyway I just remembered a very important meeting I have to be in so."   
  
"Why don't we start with what you told me earlier? Would that be easier?"  
  
"No really. I have to go." She said standing up. He moved with her, "I'm sorry for wasting your time, please keep the money." She spoke quickly, flustered, "I'll phone your office, make another appointment."  
  
Lies all lies. She just had to get out. She could feel herself loosing her grip. Like the way you get before you're about to faint. When you feel like you've lost all control. This was how it always started.  
  
When he flicked the light on Sarah gasped.  
  
"This isn't going to go away you know."   
  
He was extremely close. His voice was husky, barely audible and desperate. So very desperate. Sarah took a step away, eyes focussed on a point away from his face. She couldn't look at him. Couldn't recognise him, the voice was enough.  
  
"I have to go." She said quietly her voice slightly wavering. Comprehending but not understanding the feeling of fear in her belly. Refusing to believe what was happening.  
  
"Look at me Sarah. Or are you going to ignore me again?"  
  
"Again? I don't understand. Who are you?" She feebly protested against the reality staring her in the face and held her breath whilst trying to take a step backwards. Run! the sane part of her mind screamed but she couldn't move.  
  
"I said look at me."  
  
She looked at him. But then something fluttered in her stomach as she realised she couldn't see him. Her eyesight was blurring. Only an outline of the vague places where features should be. A dark hole for a mouth, crystals for eyes molten silver for hair. Another one was coming.  
  
"Jareth," She murmured.  
  
"Did you really believe I was anyone else?" Said a soft but contemptful voice which sounded distant and far away.   
  
But no it couldn't be. It just couldn't. Even if he was real, she'd defeated him. She was done with him. She wasn't a little girl anymore.   
  
"Let it come Sarah," She heard a wry laugh, "It will anyway."  
  
No, she thought desperately, no. These visions had nothing to do with him. Nothing. It was hard to breathe now. She felt her pupils dilate lose focus. She felt herself fall-   
  
-and suddenly she wasn't in the office anymore. She didn't know where she was. Everything was hazy and dream like, but clearer then any vision she had had before. This time instead of quick unrelenting waves of images and words it was if she had stepped inside a dream. A dream that didn't belong to her.   
  
The room she was in was large and the whole ceiling was covered in mirrors. A bed draped in silk was being made by a woman dressed all in linens of browns and pale creams. A maid. She was speaking but the words came to Sarah as if through water; thick and floating. She hadn't even noticed Sarah there. The nurse turned her head to the bay windows that were open across from the bed as if addressing someone. Thin white curtains fluttered in the breeze like dove wings. In a window seat, slightly obscured by the white, a young girl not older than sixteen sat who Sarah had never seen before. She wore flowing robes of a pale flimsy blue and a bored but not sulky look. She was watching something move in the garden twirling black black hair round a fingertip.   
  
Sarah crept forward, an intense curiosity inside her. She wanted to look at the girl in more detail and what had caught her attention. Questions of where she was, what *he* had to do with this and why she was here were left unanswered as she peered outside.   
  
Through the windows there was a bright garden. It seemed to stretch for eons and was sun-dappled with huge overpowering flowers. Amidst them stood a boy with dark blonde hair. He couldn't have been much older than the girl beside Sarah but was slender with broad shoulders clothed in an open white shirt and tight brown breeches which disappeared into boots. He was talking to someone. A man with a coarse grey beard but warm brown eyes which creased at the corners from age. He kept on obscuring the boy's face from view. When the older man left the boy turned and looked straight at them both, his lips curving into a sly smile and his eyes flashing a bright bright blue and bright green in the sun. Bright blue and bright green-  
  
-and then Sarah was back in the office again, leaning against a wall with her legs curled beneath her, her breath coming in large gasps. The stone wall was cold and the ache in her head and heart large.   
  
Immediately she swung around checking everything was real. Checking to see who was with her. She tried to remember what she had seen but it was hard. Images of Jareth were getting mixed up with the scene and it was hard to think. She opened her mouth trying to speak but her lips were dry so she ran her tongue across them.   
  
"Hello?" She said in a small voice, and then unwilling to even say his name, "Jareth?"  
  
No reply. She was alone and she realised she wasn't even in an office at all but some kind of storage room.   
  
Suddenly feeling angry she shouted, "I know you're here. Show yourself!" she exhaled hard , "Show yourself you coward!"  
Nothing.  
  
She drew herself up with a shudder, her fingers clutching at the neck of her blouse repetitively. How could she have mistaken this room for an office? The couch she had laid on was obviously an old unused one, fraying at the edges with foam poking out in places. The room was filled with some half dozen chairs and desks buried beneath boxes, books and papers. The walls of the room were painted a cold blue and the old rarely used radiator let out a subterranean gurgle but it grew no hotter.   
  
No. Sarah thought angrily. No, she wasn't stupid. This had been an office. A proper office which even had his name on the outside. Quickly she exited anxious to look at the little gold sign hung on the door which would show her she wasn't just dreaming. Storage room 11a. She brought her hand to her mouth. No. She thought again. No. Furious Sarah marched down the corridor. She was intelligent, she was observant. She couldn't have just been tricked. There was still the possibility that she was just losing her mind, a much more comforting possibility then the alternative. That he was back.  
  
"Doctor Richards," She demanded when she got to the reception.   
  
The woman at the desk gave her a strange look. "Excuse me ma'am?"  
  
"Doctor Richards. I need to talk to Doctor Richards."  
  
"I'm sorry Ma'am but we don't have a Doctor Richards here. Do you mean Doctor Richmond perhaps?"  
  
Sarah shook her head in disbelief. The woman narrowed her eyes and began to get up looking concerned.  
  
"Ma'am are you alright?"  
  
Sarah pursed her lips, eyes blazing. "Fine." And stormed out of the clinic as fast as she could.  
  
The snow was heavy and cold when she got outside. Falling on her without mercy. She took quick gasps of the bitter air and looked around at all the people rushing about but not really seeing them at all. She leant against the wall outside for support, swaying slightly, her face drained of colour staring at the streets around her which were much too loud. She shook her head again, silently fighting against the deep realisation sinking into her. It was real. It was all real. And now it was happening again. After all these years.   
  
Suddenly everywhere she turned she thought she saw him. Smirking at her. Eyes glimmering. Everywhere she looked a thousand Doctor Richards who were really a thousand Jareths laughed at her and lifted wine glasses with crimson red liquid in them to sneering lips.   
  
"No!" she screamed eliciting weird looks from the people around her. "I'm not fifteen anymore! You won't fool me again!"   
  
But he had. Even though she was twenty now and not fifteen anymore and she hadn't even let herself think about the Labyrinth until six months ago. Six months ago when the visions had first started coming. And coming. Weird shapes and voices she could pass off as her imagination and stress at first. Strange blackouts she could take pills for. The Labyrinth had been real, although she secretly had always known that. The Goblin King had been real and now he was back.   
  
And she had no idea why.  


  
* * * * *  



	2. Chapter 1

Author's notes: Yeah I know this one's weird. It's really running away with me at the moment to tell the truth so any and all criticism is welcomed. I'm hoping this becomes clearer as we go along.

  
* * * * *  
THE INBETWEEN TIME

CHAPTER 1

By Caitlin.  
  
* * * * *  


Sarah could feel the first fat drops of rain as she rushed up the slippery stone steps.   
  
By now the sweat was rolling down the back of her neck, under her ebony brown locks and soaking into the already damp cotton of her tee shirt. The rain couldn't have come soon enough.   
  
Racing to get to the porch she balanced bags of groceries on her knee and angled the key into the door lock. Sweat began to roll down her forehead and the groceries were beginning to slip. She rushed into the apartment, into the kitchen and just made it to the table--losing only one bag in the process.   
  
"Damn," She cursed and with a sigh slumped into a nearby chair and stared up at the ceiling fans which seem to share her complaints about the humidity. They twisted slowly, almost mocking her with their ineffectiveness. Crown moulding traced the ceiling and she thought she could see the mildew in the curlicues.  
  
The apartment appeared to be in various states of disrepair and after two months was now slowly sinking into a dark, ragged gentility, desperate for renovation. The A/C was constantly on the fritz and bound to stay that way. But at the moment it was all she could afford. She didn't plan on staying here much longer.   
  
She turned back to the groceries. The condensation from the soda was already creating rivers of water, veritable ponds on the tabletop. Opening the refrigerator door was an invitation too good to resist. Lifting her hair she let the artificially cooled air roll sluggishly against her face and sweat drenched skin. It had been so hot today that she'd almost forgotten what anything else felt like in this wet melting furnace.   
  
After a few moments the groceries were put away. She leant against the old scarred oak table to look at the threadbare kitchen. She chose it because of the kitchen. It reminded her of her Grandmother's house and the big wooden table where she used to lay out cookies. Chocolate. Sarah's favourite. She remembered sitting at the end of the table on a chair so big her feet swung far above the ground, awed by her grandmother as she presided over the table like some queen.   
  
She sighed, laughing inwardly at the feelings conjured up by the overpowering summer heat.   
  
Wow, how long has it been since I've thought of my childhood? Sarah wondered. She looked around.  
  
Not long enough.   
  
Her grandmother had ruled all that she saw. Everyone was a rushing, simpering peasant to her whims. She remembered a different sparkling Tiffany lamp instead of her lonely swinging lightbulb and the old family silver not her plastic forks and knifes. She remembered sitting so proper and straight, crisp linen napkin in her lap and elbows off the table.  
  
From her modest living room she heard the high pitched shrill of a telephone and quickly made her way inside.  
  
"Hello?"  
  
"Hey baby," Came the friendly voice from the other end.  
  
"Hi mum," Sarah replied rolling her eyes. This had been the sixth time Linda Williams had rang in the last couple of weeks. She definitely knew something was up. Usually when her mother was on tour she got one long phone call a week and that did Sarah fine. since their reconciliation of sorts almost four years ago Sarah had discovered her mom could get incredibly stressed when touring with her company.  
  
"So.how's my only daughter doing?"  
  
Sarah felt a strange pang at that, even after four years. But holding the past against her mother wasn't going to get her anywhere. Besides, she more than made up with all the recent incessant calling for leaving all those years ago.   
  
"The same as the last time you called mum," She said twirling the telephone wire absently around a finger.  
  
"I just get so worried about you. In that tiny dingy little apartment by yourself all the time."  
  
Sarah sighed, "Mum, I'm barely here. Work takes up most of my time at the moment."  
  
It was a half lie. She was at work a lot, doing basic editing jobs and basically the office lackey whilst trying to convince her boss Ian she could actually write. But she wasn't *really* there. Her mind drifted much too much and her concentration was forever lapsing.  
  
"Well that can't be good either Sarah. You've got to have a life outside of work."  
  
That was rich, Sarah thought, coming from her mother.  
  
"I have mum," she insisted getting slightly frustrated, "Ian's given me a weeks holiday and I've got loads of things planned."  
  
This time a full lie. Except for maybe meeting with some "friends" from work tonight she had nothing planned.   
  
"Just as long as you're getting out then."  
  
"I am mum, I swear. Don't worry,"  
  
"But I do Sarah. You've just been so distant every time I phone you. Are you sure you're sleeping alright?"  
  
"I'm sleeping fine. Look you don't have to worry. Everything's good. My jobs going well, I'm meeting people, I might even get to do an article of my own soon. Everything's good. Now I've really got to go, I'm meeting some friends soon."  
  
Linda Williams gave in, "Okay then sweetie. You know you can call me whenever you want right?"  
  
Sarah's voice softened, "I know, I know. I really have to go now or else I'm going to be late. Love you,"  
  
"Love you too honey."   
  
Sarah waited a few seconds before putting the phone down. She hadn't been lying, she did have to go out but not quite yet. Kelly was insisting she come to the opening party of a friend of hers gallery. Although she didn't feel like going Kelly would never let it go if she didn't and would know something was wrong for certain. But that didn't start for a few hours. Still some time to try and get some of that ever elusive sleep.   
  
Sarah didn't bother going to her bedroom. It was stupid but she didn't like the big windows there and the thin transparent curtains that barely held out the moonlight. She stretched out on her couch, rolling up the sleeves of the flimsy pale blue shirt she was wearing. Feeling nice and normal. Her mum was worried about her, she was seeing her friends tonight, she had a weeks holiday and she'd done her shopping.   
  
Three months and counting, she thought to herself.  
  
Three months and no visions, no Jareth, no peculiar "Doctor Richards." So what if Ian had given her a weird look when she asked if he knew a John Richards or remembered him from the weekend. The experience at the clinic was just that. An experience. Just like the Labyrinth was. And just like the Labyrinth it was over and could be forgotten about. She wasn't losing her mind. Kicking off her sandals Sarah closed her eyes whilst making a mental note to pack her groceries away later. She could leave everything till later. There was enough unresolved in her life already, one more thing couldn't hurt.   


* * * * *

  
When it happened the first time she was standing motionless in Kelly's apartment at the window overlooking the hazy street below. It was a perfect Friday night two months ago. A pregnant and heavy full December blood moon loomed over the horizon rising into a brilliant starlit sky. A thin smile was on her lips as she listened to Kelly tell her about a snobby gallery owner who had not liked her paintings.  
  
"I know that art is in the eye of the beholder but Sarah you should have seen some of the stuff he had in there,"  
  
As she spoke she was splashing bright purple paint on a canvas in, what seemed to Sarah, no sequence at all. It was all a bit too random and loud to her but, she had to admit - still pretty cool. The whole apartment floor seemed to be littered with canvasses. Only until you reached the open stairs which lead to the bedroom on the first floor was there any clear space. Half finished smiles and faces in stark impartial colours gaped at Sarah. All the melting water colour landscapes mixed with snakes and hands in Kelly's strange style gleamed in the fading light, disconcerting her a little.   
  
Kelly was a third year art Student at the local University where Sarah was also studying English as well as keeping up with an Internship at a small magazine in the centre of New York; "Art in Action." She'd met Kelly whilst doing a small article called "Artists of the future" and immediately appreciated her dry sense of humour and brash personality. She found a lot of people at her Uni. and at the magazine too snobby for her liking. Kelly was a breath of fresh air.   
  
"I mean a picture of a baked bean can," Kelly continued, "Nothing Andy Warhol-esque about it at all. Just a baked bean can. Yet apparently my work is too 'domestic' " Kelly scoffed, "I'll show him domestic."  
  
Sarah nodded in agreement only half listening. It wasn't that she wasn't interested, she was just suddenly feeling a bit dizzy. She tried to watch her friend but although she heard her Kelly's berry painted lips barely moved at all and all the canvasses seemed to be floating away. The purple paint seemed to hang to the canvass half heartedly, dripping lazily down.   
  
Something was wrong. Sarah swallowed as half toothed smiles leered at her and snakes uncurled themselves to hiss before her eyes.  
  
"Sarah, hon, what's up?" Kelly's concerned voice echoed bizarrely in her head.   
  
"I feel strange," She murmured but her voice didn't seem to belong to her at all. Her vision was gradually narrowing and Kelly's voice was muffled in her hears. She felt her legs tremble and give way just before she lost consciousness-   
  
-the faint disconnected her from time. Reminding her of a moment now swallowed in bliss last thought of a long time ago. Dazed, images flashed in her mind. Fluttering shapes flew like winged shadows, some light, some dark. A raven and a dove and an owl. A bright white owl. Moving...consuming all the colour in her mind of reality in lieu of a black and white world.  
  
Sarah saw flames of fire buried in rich, velvet blackness and chains flickering like stars and then hands. Long thin hands with almost translucent fingernails covered in chains. Wisps of white, transparent cloth wrapped upon an hourglass as swift and graceful as dandelion powder in the wind, weaved in and out of her consciousness. She heard protesting screams so loud she thought her ears were going to bleed. She saw people and crowds jeering, she heard familiar jittering and saw tiny beady yellow eyes which turned to slits-  
  
-"Sarah!"  
  
A blink and she was back in the apartment, surrounded by towering sneering paintings; dazed by what she had seen. Or what she thought she had seenand remembered. No, she thought dimly, not now. Not after all this time.  
  
"Sarah, Sarah wake up. Please wake up."   
  
As Kelly's voice echoed over and over again in her head, something like dread settled in Sarah's stomach.  


*****


End file.
